


my timetable of living

by reinacadeea



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Broken Dreams, M/M, Sex, mark is cute, oppa kink because it’s yumark, plenty of sex, yuta is fond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:35:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reinacadeea/pseuds/reinacadeea
Summary: Mark tastes like the grease of the fried chicken they ate when he kisses him in front of the bar in Itaewon. It’s a quick peck, lips meeting lips, but Mark pulls at the hairs at his neck, sending shivers up Yuta’s spine, and presses closer.“You want to, ugh, come home with me?” Yuta asks and watches the colour rise at the tip of Mark’s ears.Or, inspired by Mark being really bendy and Yuta rocking make-up
Relationships: Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 22
Kudos: 180





	my timetable of living

**Author's Note:**

> This is fictionalised depictions of real people. Read at your own risk. 
> 
> Now that’s out of the way, this is my first foray into nct fics and I’m ridiculously excited. I’m on Twitter under reinacadeea, but since it’s my newly opened fic account there is only like two posts. Come talk anyway :) 
> 
> Happy reading

He’s a dancer. Holding this ridiculous position should be possible - but his otherwise trusty abdominal muscles fails him and he falls to the side, landing heavily on the mat. 

Taeyong snorts on the mat beside him and promptly face-plants in much the same way. 

“Elegant,” Yuta hisses at him. 

Taeyong rolls his eyes and tries to get back into position. 

The ridiculously bendy yoga teacher sees them both through the mirror and gives them a large, very large, smile. “Oopsie!”

Oopsie indeed. 

Nowhere in his job description had Yuta signed onto mandatory yoga classes Mondays and Wednesdays. But according to the mid-level middleman management boss... person (?) it was now required. For the general health and well-being of the company. 

“I hate this, I hate this,” Taeyong mutters under his breath. 

Yuta agrees. 

The instructor is called MarkfromCanada and his Korean is well, passable with English words hazardously thrown in. He’s so unreservedly Western in everything he does that he feels both foreign and familiar at the same time

“Alright, everyone,” MarkfromCanada says, clapping his hands together. “Great job today! I will see you on Wednesday.”

Half-hearted clapping sounds throughout the room as the other workers scramble to leave before he makes them stay for another round. 

Yuta pulls on his bucket-hat and shuffles behind Taeyong, looking down at his phone. 

“Hey, man, your nail polish rocks!”

Yuta looks up and sees MarkfromCanada giving him double thumbs up and one of the brightest smiles he has ever seen. The mood is infectious and he grins back. “Thanks!” 

MarkfromCanada slaps him on the shoulder and Yuta watches him over his shoulder as he leaves. 

Huh.

Come Wednesday, he drags Taeyong closer to the front and he tries for the first time to do his best. 

“Looking good today, guys!” Mark calls out and Yuta looks up to find him looking his way. 

“I hate you,” Taeyong wheezes. 

“Yes, yes,” Yuta says and grins.

-

Mark tastes like the grease of the fried chicken they ate when he kisses him in front of the bar in Itaewon. It’s a quick peck, lips meeting lips, but Mark pulls at the hairs at his neck, sending shivers up Yuta’s spine, and presses closer. 

“You want to, ugh, come home with me?” Yuta asks and watches the colour rise at the tip of Mark’s ears. “Cutie,” he grins and runs a finger over Mark’s left ear. 

“Dude,” Mark cringes. 

“I’m not ‘dude’.”

“Oppa?” 

Yuta preens. 

“And, yeah, sure,” Mark says shyly. 

They sit in the back of the bus and Yuta watches Mark play with his painted fingernails. They are black with glitter tips, and they shine when the street light hits them through the bus windows. 

“I can paint yours if you want,” he says softly. 

Mark looks up and scrunches his nose. “Someday, maybe. I like it on you, though.”

“No one wears nail polish in Canada?” Yuta asks curiously. 

“You wear it better,” Mark says and then looks mortified. 

“You should complement me more. It’s making me really horny,” Yuta tells him honestly. 

Mark laughs, his eyes scrunching together cutely. Yuta nuzzles into his neck.

Taeyong doesn’t spare them a glance from his place in front of his computer, so Yuta doesn’t interrupt him, merely pushing Mark in front of him, through the doors to his room. 

“Wait...” Mark says frowning towards Taeyong. 

“Forget about him,” Yuta says and pulls him in for a kiss, pressing him backwards until Mark tumbles. “Focus on me.”

“Okay,” Mark says and pops the buttons on his pants. 

He fucks Mark with his legs trapped between his shoulders and watches the shift and grimaces every time he pushes up and into him. They are sticky with sweat and the air around them is heated - too heated considering the thin walls surrounding them and his patient roommate.

Mark reaches up and pulls a finger between Yuta’s lips. Yuta sucks at it in return and stills for a bit when Mark touches at the make-up around his eyes. 

“Do you like it?” He asks and Mark tightens both his hands in his hair. 

“Yes,” he simply says and urges Yuta to start moving again. 

Yuta comes first, grunting into Mark’s neck. Mark hums and tightens his legs around Yuta’s hips until Yuta pulls out of him. They make out while Yuta jerks him off and he comes, arching his back and scrunching his eyes closed. 

-

Mark folds his hands over breakfast and quickly mutters something under his breath, head lowered, before pouncing on his food like nothing had happened at all.

The spoon of cereal is hanging in the air in front of his lips, before Yuta realises that he’s frozen in place. 

Mark’s ears are burning.

“Cute,” Yuta says and lets the moment pass. 

Taeyong doesn’t come out of his room before he is sure Mark is gone, throwing himself on the couch. “Was he bendy?” He asks, wriggling his eyebrows. 

“Very,” Yuta preens. “He’s also, you know, nice.”

Taeyong pretends to vomit. “Is it technically a workplace romance if the part-timer does the yoga instructor?”

Yuta stretches his arms behind his head, working out the kinks of someone sleeping on his arm most of the night. “Please, it was one night.”

“Right.”

-

It’s not just one night. 

The next yoga class, Yuta makes sure to wear a shirt that is low cut enough to show the hickey on his collarbone, a little red circle that makes Mark so flustered that his ears are red the entire time. The rest is as they say history. 

Mark is endlessly fascinating - both a good Christian boy who prays for the food he receives and someone who curses heavily when they fuck. He dresses conservatively, never out of the norm, but pleads with Yuta to teach him to apply the eyeshadow he wears when he dances. When Yuta asks if he wants to wear it himself, he ducks his head and says it doesn’t suit him. 

Yuta is panting into his neck on their one month anniversary, his arms holding his weight above Mark as he pounds into him. Mark is restless beneath him, whining beneath his breath, and clutching at the sheet with closed fists. The line of his back is all agile muscle and his neck shows just how fit he is. When his arms get tired, he pulls Mark’s hips backwards and onto his knees, pistoning forward, balls deep.

“Shit, that’s deep!” Mark groans out into the pillow. 

He has been growing out the fine hairs at the base of his scull, allowing Yuta to pull at it. Mark enjoys it, just as he enjoys Yuta behind him, completely at someone else’s mercy. 

He slumps over Mark’s back when he comes and pumps his cock a couple of times, feeling every inch of Mark’s body tensing and then release. 

“The sheets,” Mark whines and Yuta rolls his eyes. 

“If that’s all...” he says and holds onto the condom as he pulls out. 

Mark throws himself onto his back, away from the wet spot and stretches cat-like. His legs are still spread, showing the curve of his ass glistening with lube and red from the exertion. Yuta throws the condom away and kneels between the spread legs, staring at Mark while he lets his index finger circle the puckered entrance. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Mark stutters and closes his eyes. 

Yuta enters him with two fingers and spreads them, gently messaging the walls. 

“It’s too much,” Mark says as his hips buck. 

“Do you want me to stop?” Yuta says and bends his fingers slightly upwards. 

“No,” is Mark’s reply as he pulls Yuta into a kiss. 

-

They are standing in line for coffee pressed together, Yuta with his arm around Mark’s chest and resting his head on Mark’s shoulder, when Mark stiffens and pulls away. 

Yuta frowns and follows Mark’s gaze towards a tall handsome man coming towards them. 

“What’s up, dude!” The guy says in English and Yuta watches them greet each other, hands together and bumping shoulders. 

Mark says something in rapid English that he can’t follow and his eyes flit nervously towards Yuta who smoothes out the frown on his face when he realises that maybe Mark isn’t out. 

“This is my buddy Johnny,” Mark says, switching to Korean, and nervously running his fingers through his hair and pulling his cap back on. “You’re same age, 95-liners.”

“Great!” Johnny says with a big grin. “Are you Japanese?” 

“Yeah,” Yuta says, feeling his guard go up. Johnny is too... unfamiliar. Too much? Maybe too friendly, but not in the nervous awkward way that Mark carries himself. Maybe it’s the confidence. 

While Johnny does his best to introduce himself in Japanese, Mark buys them all iced americanos and laughs too much at Johnny’s confidence. 

Yuta has met plenty of prejudice, living and working in Korea, but when he finally susses out that Johnny is American, he can feel his shoulders relax and instead of taking the confidence as mocking, he realises it’s merely friendliness. 

They sit down for coffee with Mark a reasonably friendly distance away from Yuta and Yuta watches the two friends talk in rapid speed, switching between languages easily. 

“Where do you know each other from?” Yuta finally asks when he can get a word in. 

“We work together,” Johnny replies easily. 

Somehow, Yuta can’t quite see Johnny as a yoga instructor. 

“You know, at SM like I told you, remember?” Mark helpfully provides while doing something strange with his eyebrows. 

“Hm,” Yuta says. Liar. Pants on fire. “Great.” 

He manages to escape the situation by claiming a headache and while he feel eyes following him out, he doesn’t turn around. 

Mark doesn’t follow him.

It explains the lack of SNS accounts and why large parts of Mark’s free time is spent ‘doing work stuff’ that he doesn’t quite elaborate on.

“Mark works for SM,” he tells Taeyong, pulling out the chord for Taeyong’s headphones from the computer. 

Taeyong grunts annoyed and then frowns when the words register. “Your Mark?”

“I have to hate him now.” The character on screen is shot dead with ‘TKO’ flashing onto the screen and angry exclamation marks rushing onto the group chat. Yuta points towards it. “Sorry.”

Taeyong turns off the screen. “I can make budajjigae.”

Yuta slumps onto the plushy blanket and stares at the ceiling. “You’re a good friend.”

-

The knocking starts at six in the morning, followed by insistent ringing. Yuta ignores it for all of ten minutes before a duvet-covered Taeyong opens his door and reminds him they have neighbours. 

“I don’t do lies,” Yuta tells Mark when he finally lets him in. 

Mark looks forlorn in the clothes he wore yesterday and greasy hair. He holds out a paperbag with Japanese print on the front and what is probably Yuta’s favourite food. 

“How can you be a trainee and a yoga instructor?” Yuta asks, ignoring the peace offering. 

“They decided I was too old for Dream,” Mark says. 

“You were supposed to debut with Dream?” 

Mark nods. “My best friends in the whole world and... it sucks, but I’m making their music now. I just got resigned like two months ago.”

“You know SM cut Taeyong from the trainees because of shitty rumours?” Yuta tells him. “He was the most talented one and then one day - he was gone. You think we’re back up dancers because we want to be?”

“I’m sorry, hyung,” Mark says with wide eyes. “I didn’t know. You’re both really talented.”

“I’m not your fucking friend, Mark,” Yuta tells him bluntly. “I don’t care about SM, but if you call me hyung one more time. No. More. Blowjobs.” 

Mark looks adorably confused for a moment, before slowly lowering himself onto the carpet beside Yuta. “We didn’t break up?” 

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Thought about it. I can’t fault you for getting screwed by the system. I was a trainee, too, once.” 

Mark sits the food down beside him and crowds up against Yuta. 

“No more secrets,” Yuta says and lets Mark straddle him. 

“Promise,” Mark says and bends down to kiss him. Yuta opens his mouth to a probing tongue and finds skin beneath Mark’s shirt, running his hands down Mark’s spine. 

He only becomes aware of his surroundings when Mark pulls away, ears visibly red and a fruitful attempt to pull his sweatshirt further down to conceal his boner.

Taeyong’s eyes are dear-caught-in-the-headlight large from his position near Mark’s apology breakfast. “Going to the gym,” he says and snatches the food before hightailing it out of the apartment. 

The door clicks shut behind him and Yuta laughs. 

“Oppa!” Mark whines and Yuta pulls him in for another kiss. 

-

Mark is unusually pliant and clingy beneath the steady stream of the shower. They are both wrung out and sore and Yuta wants to stay in this cocoon forever where Mark is just the yoga instructor from Yuta’s shitty part time job and it’s a slightly scandalous workplace romance that he will tell his friends from back home about. 

This boy, though, this idol boy who tasted his dream only for it to shatter like Yuta’s. It’s too familiar and daunting to take on. He thinks about going back home, maybe making the move to Tokyo and trying one last time, but then he thinks about Taeyong and the promises they made each other that one night after they were both told to go home. 

It would be a lie to say something would be waiting for him in Osaka, other than his parents’ muted disappointment and his own lack of education and goal. 

“Mark,” he says and sways them both just a bit. 

Mark hums against his shoulder. 

“Why haven’t you told Johnny about...”

Silence meets his question. 

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Yuta says, pulling back and locking eyes. 

“I know,” Mark says. “I mean, I think...” 

Yuta allows the silence. He turns off the water and they dry themselves. He finds clean boxers and an oversized sweatshirt and gives them to Mark who looks at his own clothes with disgust. 

Afterwards, they make ramyon and eat it on the carpet where they had made out earlier. 

It’s comfort food, but Yuta doesn’t comment on it, sure that Mark already knows. 

“You don’t think it’s weird?” Mark says after much silence and halfway through a hilariously drawn out drama that Yuta usually falls asleep to. 

“No,” Yuta replies instantly.

“But...” 

“No, I don’t think it’s weird that you like getting fucked,” Yuta explains. “Am I any less of a man because I wear nail polish?” 

“No!” Mark says offended on his behalf. “You’re definitely a man all right.”

Yuta winks. “You have an ‘oppa’ kink and apparently so do I. Who would have thought?” 

“So, we’re both weird?” 

“Yeah, of course. I find it really weird when you have bilingual fights in your sleep,” Yuta tells him. “And when you fart and say sorry, but isn’t actually sorry.” 

Mark rolls his eyes. “I am kinda sorry.”

“Liar,” Yuta says. “What’s weird about me?”

Mark puckers his lips, thinking it over. “You’re actually really skinny when you’re not wearing your usual clothes.” 

“Duh.” 

“No, but like your thighs are thinner than mine! That’s weird.” 

Yuta rests his hand on Mark’s ankle and caresses it. “I look great in a suit though.” 

Mark relaxes further at the touch. “I bet you do.” 

Yuta turns his attention back to the screen and doesn’t comment when Mark moves close enough that their entire sides are pressed together. 

“Johnny wouldn’t care, you know,” Mark finally says. “He’d be like ‘cool, whatever man, don’t be sad and shit’.”

He doesn’t know Johnny beyond their one awkward encounter, but suddenly he only remembers Johnny’s kind eyes as he tried, bravado and all, to make friends with a friend of Mark’s. “How long have you known him?” 

“Five years, maybe? Kinda seems like a lifetime,” Mark tells him and seems suddenly pensive. “If I tell him, though, won’t it be like admitting it’s over?” 

Yuta relates with aching accuracy. “I think you should kiss me now,” he says and pulls at Mark’s wrists. 

“Waaaait, Oppa, wait,” Mark pouts while he puts down the bowl of ramyon, trying his best not to spill. Yuta caresses his ears, letting his thumb trace the shell of Mark’s ear. 

Mark is finally free of his bowl and pushes Yuta onto the carpet, aligning their bodies. “I have ramyon breath,” he says, but Yuta pulls him down anyway. 

-

First it’s the guitar in the corner, then it’s a toothbrush, notebooks, shoes and finally the very worn Bible on the nightstand. 

Yuta puzzles over the state of their relationship until Taeyong off-handedly offers Mark his own identical coffee cup “because you live here anyway”. 

So, a live-in boyfriend. 

Mark, of course, is the picture of spartan living, owning four sweatshirt, six shirts and three pairs of pants - his whole life assembled in a backpack if he wants. He does everyone’s laundry, the dishes and even when he is reminded he does the vacuuming. Some days, he doesn’t come home, but Yuta knows where he is because ever since their Johnny fight, he takes pictures of his day and sends them without comment over KaTalk. It’s mostly pictures of a recording studio and a basketball court where he plays with coworkers on Thursday nights. He no longer works part time as a yoga instructor but Yuta is allowed to watch him stretch shirtless every morning anyway - which in his opinion is much better. 

Life, as they say, trudges along and even their heated whirlwind first months turn towards the normal and ordinary. There are still parts of Mark’s life where Yuta doesn’t belong and he tries not to let it get to him, knowing without a doubt that Mark struggles with this aspect perhaps even more so than Yuta himself does. 

I told Johnny, the text says and Yuta sits up straighter from his spot on the practice floor. 

Taeyong who is stretching beside him quirks his eyebrow. “What?” 

Yuta shows him the text. 

“Good for him,” Taeyong says with a toothy smile. 

They are called back for another round and he leaves his phone in the pocket of his jacket, only seeing it hours later when they are leaving the building. 

Shouldn’t I have?   
Fuck I messed up!  
Yuta?

There are several panicked texts and a couple of phone calls. 

Yuta quickly calls him back. “What happened?” he says when it’s picked up. 

There is a cough on the other end. “Is this Yuta?” 

Yuta stops and a couple of the dancers leaving with him bumps into his shoulders. “Who are you?”

“It’s uh Johnny. We met?” 

Relief washes over him. 

“Mark got drunk, I mean really drunk,” Johnny explains. “Kinda cried and stuff.”

“Where are you?” Yuta asks and runs towards the bus stop. He can feel Taeyong behind him. 

“Your apartment, I guess. Did you know he moved out of the dorm? What the fuck?” Johnny laughs awkwardly. “He’s sleeping it off in the bathroom.” 

He looks profoundly awkward sitting on the sofa when Yuta and Taeyong finally makes it back. “Oh man, I remember you,” he tells Taeyong when they make introductions. “You were so good.”

Yuta leaves them to reminisce and goes to find his drunken boyfriend. The bathroom is far too small for a grown man to lie fully stretched out, leaving half of Mark’s body in the kitchen and the rest near the toilet. Johnny has stuck a pillow beneath his head for Mark to rest on and a blanket that Mark is mostly hugging instead of wearing. Yuta crouches down and runs his hand through Mark’s hair. 

“Mark?” he says softly and pulls him closer. 

Mark stirs slowly, looking up at him with bleary red eyes. “Heeeey.” His voice is hoarse and he smells distinctly of alcohol. “Where’d Johnny go? He’s like super mad... maybe... I like think... or something.” 

Yuta pulls him up into a sitting position. “Bed first.” 

Mark grumbles but goes along with Yuta’s manhandling. He follows along Yuta, his arms slung around Yuta’s chest and resting his head on his back, completely missing a wide-eyed Johnny from the couch. Yuta sits him on the bed and pulls first Mark’s shirt off and then his jeans.   
Mark hunches in on himself, half-naked and clearly still emotional from whatever is in his head. 

“Go to sleep now,” Yuta tells him and pulls him under the covers. 

“Are you mad at me?” Mark asks in a tiny voice. 

Yuta leans down and kisses his eyelids. “No. You’re still cute.” 

It takes seconds before Mark is sleeping again, softly snoring against Yuta’s hip from where he had sat down to tuck him in. Yuta gets up, turns off the light, and goes back into the living room.

Taeyong hands him a beer wordlessly and disappears into his room. 

“So,” Yuta says. 

“Boyfriends... I mean - boyfriends!” Johnny says. “Wow!” 

“Do you have a problem with that?” Yuta says coolly and watches Johnny turn several shades of red. 

“What! No! Not that part, no.”

“But something does bother you?” Yuta infers and sits down across from Mark’s friend. 

“Not what you’re thinking,” Johnny says suddenly serious. “Kinda angry it took him five years to tell me something important like that.”

The silence stretches between them. 

-

Morning comes with a cold nose in his ear and fingers stroking at the fine hairs at the back of his head. Arms encircle his waist and a body aligns itself with his own. 

“I’m sorry,” a voice whispers. 

Yuta snorts and holds Mark’s hand between his own. 

“I freaked,” Mark says. 

“You did,” Yuta agrees. “You’ve never told anyone who you didn’t intend to sleep with, have you?”

Mark is silent behind him. “Taeyong?”

“Taeyong doesn’t count,” Yuta sighs and turns around. 

Mark shies away from his gaze, but doesn’t move away, so Yuta kisses him. 

“I’m glad you did,” he says and Mark blushes. 

He pulls his hair into a ponytail and follows Mark out of the room after they have dressed themselves. Johnny and Taeyong appears to be in the middle of a planking challenge that Taeyong is clearly losing and pays them no mind. Mark stops in front of them and crouches down into a sitting position, awkwardly laughing at Taeyong nose-diving into the carpet. 

Yuta makes coffee. 

He wonders if Johnny is to Mark what Taeyong is to him - a never ending support system, someone who understands the struggle and the fight, because if he does they will be all right. He can’t follow their conversation in English, but it appears calm, almost soft. Johnny had asked him the night before why Mark would hide so many aspects of himself and Yuta couldn’t answer him, doesn’t know how. Mark doesn’t hide from him, never has. His curiosities has always been laid bare plain as day between them. 

“Oppa,” Mark says and Yuta looks up from his lukewarm coffee to see him, Taeyong and Johnny fully dressed, phones in hand. “We’re getting Western breakfast. You want to come?” 

“Five minutes,” he says and leaves for the bedroom. 

“Oppa? What the fuck, Markie?” Johnny laughs and punches his shoulder. “That’s TMI!”

Yuta can’t see him, but he can imagine him ducking his head, his ears flaming red, and the whine of “don’t laugh at me,” comes seconds later. 

-

Mark’s idea of a romantic getaway is an hour outside of Seoul, close to nature and complete silence. Yuta is reluctantly charmed by the hanok, even though it’s old and creaky and the windows are only covered by wood. It is private though, almost five minutes away from the nearest other house and a fireplace that Mark is itching to light up - as evidenced by the guitar he proudly carried through the early evening rush hour out of Seoul because he couldn’t get out of work earlier. 

It would have been easier to borrow Taeyong’s uncle’s car, but the adventurous gleam in Mark’s eyes had told him no, so public transport it was. 

“How are we going to feed ourselves?” Yuta asks Mark, who is following around a flock of irritated chickens, from his spot on the hanok’s deck.

“Ramyon, rice and...” Mark replies and tries to catch the nearest chicken. “And chicken.” He fails miserably.

“We’ll starve then,” Yuta states dramatically. “I’ll be skin and bones by the time we return to Taeyong’s homemade food.” 

Mark stops and places his hands on his hips, squinting from the sharp sunlight. “You’re already skin and bones.”

Yuta grabs the end of his shirt and pokes at his ribs. “I have a nice dick though.”

If he didn’t have irrefutable evidence that Mark actually enjoyed his dick, he might have taken offence at his slow response. Mark, though, pulls at his legs so they are hanging over the deck’s edge and pulls them apart, making space for himself. Yuta watches his hands when they pull at his fly and hisses when lips envelopes his cock. Between the mountainous view and Mark’s bobbing head, Yuta feels at a loss. 

How could he be so lucky, he thinks and closes his eyes, focusing completely on the feeling instead. 

“I know when you’re angling for a blowjob, you fiend,” Mark says later when they are about an hour into their walk through the forest. 

Yuta feigns mock-outrage. “I refuse to be labelled that transparently.”

“As transparent as plastic wrap,” Mark sing-songs. “Besides, isn’t it my turn?” 

“What and risk someone seeing your glorious cock out in the free?” Yuta says, lowering his voice. “I refuse to take that risk.” 

“So yours is all right but mine is off-limits?” Mark asks. 

Yuta stops and looks behind him to where Mark is walking in only shorts, tank top, sneaks and a cap. The thought of Mark completely naked in the nature is somewhat appealing - the thought of someone else seeing him naked is... uncomfortable. “I just realised I may be somewhat possessive,” he admits. 

Mark arches an eyebrow. “Just now?”

Yuta reaches out for his hand and closes the distance between them. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Mark mutters under his breath and pulls his cap off to close the distance between them. 

Yuta smiles against his lips. 

-

They eat dinner with the auntie who owns the hanoks alongside an assortment of tourists and sightseers. It’s homemade and traditional cold noodles fit for the hot summer. Mark, ever the social butterfly, strums his guitar and has the three American girls in their twenties singing along to Taylor Swift. The auntie starts a fire and serves plastic cups of beer and fried chicken for dessert. 

“Gosh, this is so good,” one of the girls exclaims in English after eating a piece of chicken. Yuta surprises himself by actually understanding about forty percent of their conversation, but is content for Mark to shine and talk, watching how the cadence of him switching to English both sound so foreign and familiar at the same time. 

One of the girls surprises him by actually trying to make conversation, asking him where he lives and how old he is - basic things. 

“You’re Japanese, right?” The girl asks uncertainly as if she is overstepping. 

“I am,” he replies happily. “It’s the hair, yes?” 

She nods enthusiastically. 

Though their conversation is basic at best, Yuta learns that Naruto and Pokemon is a universal language. 

Yuta only slightly regrets his decision to be friendly the next morning when the three girls appears at breakfast looking like they have been up all night. Their campfire had abruptly ended when it had started to pour and Yuta and Mark had run back to their hanok, quickly undressed and found each other between the sheets where Yuta had shown Mark exactly how possessive he was. He doesn’t regret the hickey right above Mark’s clavicle but the t-shirt he wears to hide it covers his glorious upper arms instead. Can’t have it all, he supposes, and watches with increasing alarm as Mark hears the story of how the girls’ hanok had been overrun with water, leaving them with the only option of leaving the place all together because everything else was booked. 

“Oh no,” Mark exclaims. “Totally like stay with us instead.” 

“Mark,” Yuta says and is about to comment further when one of the girls step up. 

“That’s so sweet of you, but we all have like boyfriends and stuff.” 

“Pfft,” Mark says. “Me, too. Seriously don’t worry about it. We leave tomorrow anyway.” 

Yuta is so perplexed by Mark casually outing himself that he misses the girls’ quick acceptance and thanks. Instead, he sits down on the bench and picks up his spoon and wordlessly starts eating. 

“Are you proud of me?” Mark asks in Korean when he finally extradites himself from the girls. 

“Three girls in a hanok by ourselves,” Yuta deadpans. “Should be anyone’s dream.”

“Three boys maybe,” Mark says. 

“I don’t want anyone else,” Yuta tells him. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Mark replies and that’s that. As easy as breathing. As natural as the sun rising every day.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment. It’s what makes us write faster! Happy New Year and stay safe


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